What's New in Blockchain?
Ahead in Blockchain
The excitement around blockchain at the moment seems to be tied to its creator: Bitcoin. With Tesla putting $1.5B into Bitcoin from its corporate treasury, there is once again a frenzy for crypto assets. Let’s hope it does not end in crypto winter this time around.
We were early to crypto/blockchain applications for institutions on our first fund but feel very good about ZenLedger, who provides tax support for this market. They are about to do their A round, and a frenzy of interest has already started. A little FOMO is good in this case.
We have studied blockchain as a technology for many businesses and have found ourselves unsatisfied. We are hopeful that in Fund II, we will start to see its use in a practical and useful way. We also continue to monitor how blockchain is being further enhanced and improved. Being near MIT (in more normal times) has allowed us to visit their amazing labs working on this technology. It does feel that Defi is not far off on the horizon.
DeFi is the way to use parts of the financial services value chain to create new and interesting ways to develop a business. Circle is a local company that has made a great deal of progress on stable value crypto coins to make money transfer faster and easier. But even they have only recently found traction that turns into revenues.
DeFi will let us make the world of finance less opaque and expensive. Since it deconstructs the value chain for a bank or an insurance company, you only take what is required to fulfill your needs. We will keep looking for those amazing entrepreneurs who will create new markets and applications in a DeFi world. Blockchain is bound to be part of their plans.
— Mark & Dave
Vestigo Ventures in the News!
Mark Named 2021 Innovator by InvestmentNews
We are proud to announce our General Partner Mark Casady has been featured in InvestmentNews Icons & Innovators 2021 issue.
Institutional Investor Features Vestigo Ventures and Lefteris
We are excited to see Vestigo Ventures and Mark's SPAC Lefteris featured in the Institutional Investor.
Envisions Interview
What's New in Blockchain?
Shuyao Kong, Technologist at ConsenSys
Embedded Finance in Big Tech
Recently we participated in a survey on embedded finance for an account information company and a consulting firm. They wanted to dig into how far technology companies can make finance part of their value chain.
Here are some examples we discussed that we thought you might find interesting.
For example, let's say Apple decides to provide basic checking, savings, and investment accounts geared to goal-based savings. They would connect your spending and savings habits as evidenced by your account's transactions to help you stay on track financially. Below we see a few examples:
- Your Apple watch might suggest you not buy that next expensive cup of coffee when seeing you are in a Starbucks. For me, it would say head to Dunks!
- Your phone being used for payments is happening now, but what if they added a round-up feature that went to your goal-based savings account? How about if they have a discount on Apple products if one of your goals is to buy a new Apple Mac Book Pro?
You can easily see how these financial features can play a significant role in big tech. Big tech sees the banking and insurance profit margins and salivate. What if they used the Circle stable coin and created an environment where you can pay for your purchases with it and keep it on hand in savings with them. They could pay you decent interest to entice you to keep money on hand. They could pay merchants for their goods and avoid the debit card and credit card fees.
My question is, why have they not done this already? What do you think? Good idea or not?
Tesla, which has very little profit on each car sold, has added car servicing and insurance to the offer to consumers. Those are providing decent margins to their core business. They can easily embed finance into their offerings.
As a whole, it was a great discussion about how far technology companies and well known and trusted brands can take over the financial services space. For many consumers, this may be the bank of the future.
— Mark Casady
Portfolio Updates
Zenledger Partners with CoinCecko
Zenledger partnered with CoinGecko to provide a discount reward to US-based CoinGecko users for their cryptocurrency accounting and tax preparation. CoinGecko is the world's leading independent cryptocurrency aggregator with over 6M+ global users.
Vault in the Spotlight Once Again
Vault continues to impress with its goal of reducing the student debt crisis in the US. In this video, CNBC covers Vault's crucial role in helping companies pay off some of their employees' student loans.
Micronotes Partners with Experian
Micronotes has officially partnered with Experian to help financial institutions lower consumers' borrowing costs. With Micronotes advanced chat AI, they can now efficiently compare financial institutions lending criteria and rates to consumer's credit profiles deployed through email, online, and mobile banking channels.
Roots CTO Speaks About the Benefits of Cognitive AI in Insurance
John Cottongim, Roots CTO, speaks about the apparent issues with robotic process automation (RPA) and the benefits of Cognitive AI solutions in the insurance industry.
Interesting Reads
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